Description
Honeyberry has a reputation for being delicate, and it is mostly earned. The fruit on most cultivars is soft enough to bruise looking at it, which is lovely eaten off the bush in June and awkward for anything else. Indigo Gem is the exception the University of Saskatchewan’s program produced: shorter, oval berries around 1.3 grams with thick skin and dense flesh, firm enough to machine harvest and firm enough to reach a market intact.
What that texture does for a home grower is give a honeyberry that behaves like fruit rather than like a preserve waiting to happen. The flavour is sweet and tart at once, in the register between blueberry and black currant, and it holds up in the hand. Ripening comes mid-June, near the front of the honeyberry season, on a vigorous plant that runs roughly 5 to 6 ft tall and spreads to about 4 ft.
The one thing to get right before buying is the partner. Honeyberry cannot pollinate itself, so a second, genetically different plant is not optional. It also cannot be pollinated by a close relative: Indigo Gem, Indigo Treat and Indigo Yum share both parents, and the Saskatchewan crossing work found poor fruit set across the whole Tundra and Borealis and Indigo group even when the flowers overlapped. ‘Aurora’ and ‘Honey Bee’ are the two partners the program recommends for this cultivar, and either one solves it.
Overview
- University of Saskatchewan release, from the Indigo series, around 2011.
- Berries about 1.3 grams, shorter and oval.
- Thicker skin and firmer flesh than most honeyberry.
- Sweet and tart, blueberry and black currant register.
- Ripens mid-June.
- Vigorous, roughly 5 to 6 ft with a broad, spreading habit.
- Hardy to Zone 2.
- Requires an unrelated pollination partner; ‘Aurora’ or ‘Honey Bee’.
Growing Details
Latin Name: Lonicera caerulea ‘Indigo Gem’
Site and Soil: Full sun, six hours or more; drained soil across a wide pH range, roughly 5.5 to 8.0, with no acidification needed
Hardiness: Hardy to Zone 2
Size at Maturity: Roughly 5 to 6 ft tall by 4 ft wide, broad and spreading rather than upright
Fruit: Shorter oval berries averaging about 1.3 grams, with thicker skin and denser flesh than the species norm
Bloom Time: Early
Ripening Time: Mid-June, earlier than ‘Aurora’
Pollination: Not self-fertile. Plant an unrelated cultivar with overlapping bloom; ‘Aurora’ and ‘Honey Bee’ are the recommended partners, and ‘Indigo Treat’, ‘Indigo Yum’, ‘Tundra’ and ‘Borealis’ are poor choices because they are too closely related
Harvest Note: Birds strip ripe honeyberry quickly; netting goes on before the fruit colours
Additional Notes
- Grower’s Insight: The firm flesh is the reason to choose this one over a softer honeyberry, because it is the difference between fruit you eat standing at the bush and fruit you can actually carry inside, freeze whole and bake with.
- Regional Insight: Indigo Gem blooms early, which suits most of the country and is the one caveat here in the maritime Northwest, where the earliest honeyberry bloom can open before many pollinating insects are flying and the later-blooming cultivars set more reliably; east of the Cascades, across the northern plains and through the Upper Midwest and Northeast, early bloom is an advantage rather than a risk.
- Honeyberry and haskap are the same plant. The Japanese name follows the University of Saskatchewan releases through most of the trade, and the older Russian-derived cultivars are usually sold as honeyberry.
- Explore more honeyberries in our collection: Honeyberries
